


the love they deserve.

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 18:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mother calls him Siobhan and everyone calls her Serendipity, but they know each other's names. In this tale, they learn each other's bodies, and each other's hearts as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the love they deserve.

He cocks his head to the left, then to the right. Frowns, tugs at his collar, sucks in his cheeks and sweeps his hand over freshly-oiled hair.  
Behind his binder, his heart thuds and his lungs struggle to expand. Already a fine sheen of sweat is breaking out at his hairline.  
 _I can't do this._

Leandra looks up from her work when he strides by -- at another noblewoman's encouragement, she's begun sketching out gown concepts to send to Orlais for fashioning. Seanán hadn't even known she could draw.  
"Going out?" she calls.

"Obviously," he mumbles, dodging Bodahn's appraising look. The front door is so close...

"Siobhan, dear, do try to be back before dawn this time? I worry, you know..."

Seanán's teeth grind, his skin beginning to shrink. _No. Not this, not tonight. I_ am _Seanán. I am._  
"I'll be back when I get back," he snaps, and escapes.

\--

"What do you mean, you're _booked_? You're in demand, you know, and it's a high-traffic night--"

"Lusine, do I ask for much?" Suri pulls the brush through her hair with measured strokes, her smile placid as Lake Calenhad but her eyes as chaotic as the Waking Sea. "Just give me this night. The house will still get its due."

Lusine's lips tighten. "I want you out on the floor tomorrow. In the red-and-black. And I swear on Andraste's holy bosom, Serendipity, this better not become a pattern. You're a commodity, but don't think you're indispensable."

 _You are indispensable,_ Suri reminds herself fiercely as she stares at her reflection, pursing her lips to apply colour. _You are beautiful, and sophisticated, and indispensable._  
Eventually, the mocking voices in the back of her mind settle down, and she can throw her shoulders back again. Her practiced smile even manages to reach her eyes this time.

\--

The hairs on the back of his neck prickle when Seanán approaches Madam Lusine. From the moment they'd first spoken, he'd disliked her -- disliked the predatory look in her eyes, the harshness of the lines around her mouth and eyes, the way she regarded him when he followed Suri into her room.

But if it meant he could see Suri for even a moment, he'd take Lusine out to dinner and a play.

"So _you're_ the one," she says, not entirely pleasantly, as she pockets his coin. "Make this a habit and I'll have to charge extra. We can't have our best girls wasting their time, you know."

 _Yeah,_ the former Fereldan thought sourly as he took the stairs to Suri's room. _I know._

This isn't the first time he's seen her in this very room, but his heart is in his throat as he opens the door. The first times, they'd only talked. They'd shared experiences hesitantly, haltingly, their eyes darting to meet the other's, their hands twining in their laps.  
Now, talking was easier. But other things...

"Hi," she says softly, her lips curving, as Seanán closes the door behind him.  
She is resplendent in her soft blue gown, the colour so much more suited to her personality than the lurid reds and purples that Lusine has her wear on the floor. Her hair is down, out of the damned nugtails that make her look comically nonthreatening. It's growing, brushing the back of her neck now, and he fiercely hopes that they don't make her cut it.

"You, uh. You look... great," he stammers, a flush rising to his cheeks already. Her hesitant smile widens, her eyes softening at their edges. She reaches her hands out to him, hands that tremble. Her nervousness mirrors his, and he is surprised.

"Come, Seanán," she coaxes, and he thaws a little at the speaking of his name.

\--

"I don't... I've never..." He struggles with the words stuck in the back of his throat, choking off his air. Suri takes his hands again, squeezes them, her large eyes seeking his frantic ones.

"I know. Let me."

 _He wants me to lead,_ she knows, and because she cares for him, more than she'd expected, she does.  
Though her heart hammers just as loudly in her chest, though she's dangerously on the edge of panic that she hasn't felt since her first days at the Rose, she gets to her feet and starts to unlace her gown.

Seanán watches with an almost-guilty look in his eyes, as if he's seeing something he shouldn't be privy to, and that won't do. She leans down and distracts him with the light brush of her lips over his, feeling them tremble...  
She doesn't expect to be drawn into the kiss, for Seanán's mouth to open to hers or for her skin to flush so hotly at the flutter of his hand on her neck. Her distraction works much better than she'd expected -- something melts in him and flares in her, and he falls back against the bed and she lets the gown fall off her as she climbs over him, and the moment only breaks when she slips her hand down the front of his body.

He falters and shrinks away, muscles tightening. She feels the change as acutely as if it'd happened in her own body -- it had, many times before -- and draws back to look into his eyes again.  
"It's all right," but she hates those words on her tongue as much as she hates them on others'.

Seanán looks down, between their bodies, and licks his lips nervously. His eyes linger at what presses against his belly, and Suri feels that queer anxious flutter deep in her gut.  
The boys, they ignored it. It is easy to ignore when she's on her hands and knees, their hands shoved into her hair, their eyes shut tight. But Seanán _stared_ , even if he didn't mean to, and she can't bear that.

She climbs off him and sits against the pillows, and Seanán sits up quickly with the most poignantly frightened look in his eyes, and she starts to say something glib but her eyes well up instead, and she shakes her head and hides her face in her hands.  
His distressed murmur and the gentle touch of his hands on her wrists draw a muffled sob from her, which only distresses him further. She fights for composure, if only for his sake, but he's drawing her into his arms and he's whispering her name so softly and she thinks she hears a thin film of tears in his voice as well, and she can't bear any of it.

Even as she's crying she reaches for the hem of his shirt, tugging with a desperation she didn't think herself capable of, and Seanán lifts his arms and she pulls the garment off him and what's underneath is like a corset but for his entire torso, from armpit to waistline, and his shoulders hunch in but she determinedly fumbles for the laces through the film of her tears.  
Somewhere during all of this she thinks with a blinding clarity, _This is the defining night of our relationship,_ and before then she hadn't even thought of it as such -- whores didn't have _relationships,_ after all -- but that's exactly what it was.

He lets her undress him and press her lips to his chest, and she shudders when his shaking hands touch her cock, and _that's exactly what it was._

\--

Suri wraps herself in a dressing gown and Seanán reaches for the binder but it's so nice to be able to breathe that he just holds a pillow to his chest and inhales.

"Whores don't have lovers. They have _regulars._ " Suri's voice is brittle, and she's still turned away from him.

"I'll be your regular," he says immediately, and is wounded by her barking laugh.

"No. You won't. You won't ever see me here again." Seanán's gut twists in a desperate sort of fear, but she turns to him then, and her eyes are sad but her lips are smiling wryly.  
"Whores _do_ make house calls to influential noblemen, you know."

\--

She insists on calling herself a 'whore' so that Seanán does not forget.  
Seanán begs her to leave the Rose, but the Rose is all she knows. She is no noblewoman, despite his fervent belief that she _could_ be one, she _could_ , she was classier than all of them.

He insists on calling himself 'hers', his eyes shining, the adoration in them so intense that her heart breaks to see it.  
"I'll hurt you, I will, I'm just a stupid girl from the Alienage, the laughingstock of the Rose," and she only stops saying this when the hurt look in those eyes is too much for her to bear.

"I need you," he murmurs to her in the dead of night, "come with me, I need you, Kirkwall's going to shit and _I need you,_ " and quietly she lets herself imagine walking out of the Rose for the last time.


End file.
